W. B. Yeats

“ My nobles would call me a weakling, and it may be
The very throne be shaken; but should you
That are his friends speak to him and persuade him
To turn his mouth from the ill-savouring grave
And eat good food, he shall not lack my favour;
For I will give plough-land and grazing-land,
Or all but anything he has set his heart on.
It is not all because of my good name
I’d have him live, for I have found him a man
That might well hit the fancy of a king
Banished out of his country, or a woman’s,
Or any other’s that can judge a man
For what he is. ”

“ And though they love to blow a smoking coal
Till it’s all flame, the wars they blow aflame
Are full of glory, and heart uplifting pride,
And not like this; the wars they love awaken
Old fingers and the sleepy strings of harps.
Who did it then? Are you afraid; speak out,
For I have put you under my protection
And will reward you well. Dubthach the Chafer.
He had an old grudge. No, for he is with Maeve.
Laegaire did it. Why do you not speak?
What is this house? [A pause.] Now I remember all.
Fintain.
He will kill us. O, I am afraid!
Cuchullain.
[Who is before Concobar’s chair.] ”

“ That trumpet means that the curtain is going to rise, and after a while the stage there will be filled up with great ladies and great gentlemen, and poets, and a king with a crown on him, and all of them as high up in themselves with the pride of their youth and their strength and their fine clothes as if there was no such thing in the world as cold in the shoulders, and speckled shins, and the pains in the bones and the stiffness in the joints that make an old man that has the whole load of the world on him ready for his bed. ”

“ Fedelm, troubled, has covered her eyes with her hands.
Fedelm.
No, there are not four rivers, and those rhymes
Praise Adam’s Paradise.
Seanchan.
I can remember now.
It’s out of a poem I made long ago
About the garden in the east of the world,
And how spirits in the images of birds
Crowd in the branches of old Adam’s crab-tree;
They come before me now and dig in the fruit
With so much gluttony, and are so drunk
With that harsh, wholesome savour that their feathers
Are clinging one to another with the juice. ”

“ Why can’t they be quiet, why can’t they be quiet! Ah, you would get away, would you? [He follows the blind man who has been crawling along the wall and makes him lie down close to the King’s chair.] Lie there, lie there. No, you won’t get away. Lie there till the Kings come, I’ll tell them all about you. I shall tell it all. How you sit warming yourself, when you have made me light a fire of sticks, while I sit blowing it with my mouth. Do you not always make me take the windy side of the bush when it blows and the rainy side when it rains?
Fintain.
O good fool, listen to me. ”

“ Fintain.
He is outside the door.
Cuchullain.
Outside the door?
Fintain.
He is under Baile’s yew-tree.
Cuchullain.
Concobar, Concobar, the sword into your heart. [He goes out. A pause. The fool goes to the great door at back and looks out after him.
Barach.
He is going up to King Concobar; they are all under the tree. No, no, he is standing still. There is a great wave going to break and he is looking at it. Ah! now he is running down to the sea, but he is holding up his sword as if he were going into a fight. [A pause.] Well struck, well struck! ”

“ There are a great many Queens there who can change themselves into wolves and into swine and into white hares, and when they are in their own shapes they are stronger than almost any man; and there are young men there who have cat’s eyes and if a bird chirrup or a mouse squeak they cannot keep them shut, even though it is bedtime and they sleepy; and listen, for this is a great wonder, a very great wonder: there is a long narrow bridge, and when anybody goes to cross it, that the Queens do not like, it flies up as this bench would if you were to sit on the end of it. ”

“ I must be always thinking, thinking to get food for the two of us, and when we’ve got it, if the moon’s at the full or the tide on the turn, he’ll leave the rabbit in its snare till it is full of maggots, or let the trout slip through his hands back into the water. ”

“ A hundred kings have sown it and re-sown it,
Has neither trembled nor shrunk backward yet
Because of the hard business of a king. [Princesses, Ladies, and Courtiers have come in with Pupils, who have halters round their necks.
Speak to your master, beg your life of him,
Show him the halters that are round your necks;
If his heart’s set upon it he may die,
But you shall all die with him; beg your lives;
Begin, for you have little time to lose;
Begin it you that are the oldest pupil.
Senias.
[Going up to Seanchan.]
Die, Seanchan, and proclaim the right of the poets. ”

“ Fintain.
He is Cuchullain’s son.
Barach.
And his mother has sent him hither to fight his father.
Fintain.
It is all quite plain. Cuchullain went into Aoife’s country when he was a young man that he might learn skill in arms, and there he became Aoife’s lover.
Barach.
And now she hates him because he went away, and has sent the son to kill the father. I knew she was a goddess.
Fintain.
And she never told him who his father was, that he might do it. I have thought it all out, fool. I know a great many things because I listen when nobody is noticing and I keep my wits awake. What ails you now? ”

“ They gather about the ale vat and begin to drink.
Cuchullain.
Who was it that went out?
Third Young King.
As we came in?
Cuchullain.
Yes.
Third Young King.
Barach and blind Fintain.
Cuchullain.
They always flock together; the blind man
Has need of the fool’s eyesight and strong body,
While the poor fool has need of the other’s wit,
And night and day is up to his ears in mischief
That the blind man imagines. ”

“ Cuchullain comes down from his great chair. He remains standing on the steps of the chair. The Young Kings gather about him and begin to arm him.
Give me that helmet!
I’d thought they had grown weary sending champions.
That leathern coat will do. The High King there
Being old in wisdom can think of times to come,
But the hawk’s sleepy till its well-beloved
Cries out amid the acorns, or it has seen
Its enemy like a speck upon the sun.
What’s Emain to the hawk when that clear eye
Is burning nearer up in the high air? ”

“ We must not stay here. The Kings are going to meet here. Now that Concobar and our master, that is his chief man, have put down all the enemies of Ullad, they are going to build up Emain again. They are going to talk over their plans for building it. Were you ever in Concobar’s town before it was burnt? O, he is a great King, for though Emain was burnt down, every war had made him richer. He has gold and silver dishes, and chessboards and candlesticks made of precious stones. Fool, have they taken the top from the ale vat? ”

“ Daire.
That would be natural
When Mother Earth had given you this good milk
From her great breasts.
Cuchullain.
[To one of the Young Kings beside him.]
One is content awhile
With a soft warm woman who folds up our lives
In silky network. Then, one knows not why,
But one’s away after a flinty heart.
The Young King.
How long can the net keep us?
Cuchullain.
All our lives
If there are children, and a dozen moons
If there are none, because a growing child
Has so much need of watching it can make
A passion that’s as changeable as the sea
Change till it holds the wide earth to its heart. ”

“ To weigh this sword against Cuchullain’s sword. [There is a murmur amongst the Kings.
Concobar.
And are you noble? for if of common seed
You cannot weigh your sword against his sword
But in mixed battle.
Young Man.
I am under bonds
To tell my name to no man, but it’s noble.
Concobar.
But I would know your name and not your bonds.
You cannot speak in the Assembly House
If you are not noble.
A King.
Answer the High King.
Young Man.
[Drawing his sword.] I will give no other proof than the hawk gives
That it’s no sparrow. ”

“ And the cold sliding slippery-footed moon,
A brief forgiveness between opposites
That have been hatreds for three times the age
Of this long ’stablished ground. Here’s Concobar;
So I’ll be done, but keep beside me still,
For while he talks of hammered bronze and asks
What wood is best for building, we can talk
Of a fierce woman. [Concobar, a man much older than Cuchullain, has come in through the great door at the back. He has many Kings about him. One of these Kings, Daire, a stout old man, is somewhat drunk.
Concobar.
[To one of those about him.] Has the ship gone yet? ”

“ Fintain.
He was a Queen’s son.
Cuchullain.
What Queen, what Queen? [He seizes the blind man.] Was it Scathach? There were many Queens. All the rulers were Queens.
Fintain.
No, not Scathach.
Cuchullain.
It was Uathach, then. Speak, speak!
Fintain.
I cannot speak, you are clutching me too tightly. [Cuchullain lets him go.] I cannot remember who it was. I am not certain. It was some Queen.
Barach.
He said a while ago that the young man was Aoife’s son.
Cuchullain.
She? No, no, she had no son when I was there.
Barach.
That blind man there said that she owned him for her son.
Cuchullain. ”

“ But as to the big play you are to see to-night, my nephew taught me to say what the poet had taught him to say about it. [Puts down candlestick and puts right finger on left thumb.] First, he who told the story of Seanchan on King Guaire’s threshold long ago in the old books told it wrongly, for he was a friend of the king, or maybe afraid of the king, and so he put the king in the right. But he that tells the story now, being a poet, has put the poet in the right. ”

“ The fool is putting the feathers into his hair. Cuchullain takes a handful of feathers out of the heap and out of the fool’s hair, and begins to wipe the blood from his sword with them.
Barach.
He has taken my feathers to wipe his sword. It is blood that he is wiping from his sword! ”

“ Perhaps Cuchullain will give you a new cap with a feather. He told me that he would give you a new cap with a feather, a feather with an eye that looks at you, a peacock’s feather.
Barach.
No, no.
[He begins pulling Fintain towards the door.
Fintain.
If you do not get it now, you may never get it, for the young man may kill him.
Barach.
No, no, I am hungry. What a head you have, blind man! Who but you would have remembered that the hen-wife slept for a little at noon every day!
Fintain.
[Who is being led along very slowly and unwillingly.] Yes, I have a good head. ”

“ Everybody who goes there to learn skill in arms has to cross it. It was in that country too that Cuchullain got his spear made out of dragon bones. There were two dragons fighting in the foam of the sea, and their grandam was the moon, and nine Queens came along the shore.
Barach.
I won’t listen to your story.
Fintain.
It is a very wonderful story. Wait till you hear what the nine Queens did. Their right hands were all made of silver.
Barach.
No, I will have my dinner first. You have eaten the fowl I left in front of the fire. ”

“ And as to what happened Seanchan after, my nephew told me he didn’t know, and the poet didn’t know, and it’s likely there’s nobody that knows. But my nephew thinks he never sat down at the king’s table again, after the way he had been treated, but that he went to some quiet green place in the hills with Fedelm, his sweetheart, where the poor people made much of him because he was wise, and where he made songs and poems, and it’s likely enough he made some of the old songs and the old poems the poor people on the hillsides are saying and singing to-day. ”

“ Cuchullain.
What are you wrangling over?
Barach.
He is fat and good for nothing. He has left me the bones and the feathers.
Cuchullain.
What feathers?
Barach.
I left him turning a fowl at the fire. He ate it all. He left me nothing but the bones and feathers.
Fintain.
Do not believe him. You do not know how vain this fool is. I gave him the feathers, because I thought he would like nothing so well.
[Barach is sitting on a bench playing with a heap of feathers, which he has taken out of the breast of his coat.
Barach.
[Singing.] When you were an acorn on the tree top——
Fintain. ”

“ There is a great ale vat at one side near a small door, and a large door at the back through which one can see the sea. Barach, a tall thin man with long ragged hair, dressed in skins, comes in at the side door. He is leading Fintain, a fat blind man, who is somewhat older. ”

“ Is crossed in love. The heavy inlaid brooch
That Buan hammered has a merit too. [He begins spreading the cloak out on a bench, showing it to the Young Man. Suddenly Concobar beats with his silver rod on a pillar beside his chair. All turn towards him.
Concobar.
[In a loud voice.] No more of that, I will not have this friendship.
Cuchullain is my man and I forbid it;
He shall not go unfought for I myself——
Cuchullain.
[Seizing Concobar.] You shall not stir, High King, I’ll hold you there.
Concobar.
Witchcraft has maddened you.
The Kings.
[Shouting.] Yes, witchcraft, witchcraft. ”